A Glimpse of the Future
by MissAnnThropic
Summary: There was fear in the future, there was anger, and in its center she’d seen Anakin.


Title: A Glimpse of the Future  
Author: MissAnnThropic  
Spoilers: Attack of the Clones  
Summary: There was fear in the future, there was anger, and in its center she'd seen Anakin.  
Disclaimer: I own nasing! Really, I don't. All you see here (that you recognize, anyway) is the creation of someone else. I take no credit.

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Jedi Padawan Sora Aynan frowned, normally schooled expression darkening slightly in consternation. She gathered her thoughts, taking a meditative breath and trying to bring peace to her thinking. It worked to a degree... the strongest of her confusion (and therein frustration at her perplexed state) abated, but it brought no further clarity to the problem before her that her master had set before her.

Sora looked up from her data pad, letting her gaze focus out the window at the busy vista of Coruscant. She was seated in one of the higher towers of the Jedi Temple, giving her the barest of cleared views of the gigantic city. It was a bustle not only in the traffic and business, but the cacophony of sensations that swelled from the masses. She could remember how much more peaceful it had seemed when she was younger, almost a background hum then. When she'd become old enough (not even ten years old), she was transfered out of Yoda's youth training pogram and given her own master to apprentice to. It was her master, Qualok, who'd really opened her unmastered Jedi senses, and after that Courscant had never been the same again. It was a din of chaotic feelings and thoughts, yet another incentive to master her own mental talents in order to turn down the mental noise.

Now, she let the confused thoughts come through, hoping to get perspective on her own confusion by experiencing another. She and her master had just returned from a mission to the Morali System to medaite a dispute. She, her master, and the leaders of the three conflicting factions had gotten together... and just when it seemed they'd been making progress Master Qualok had taken them back to Coruscant before anything had been resolved.

Sora's confusion had been practically palpable to her master, and he'd tasked her with reflecting on his action and returning with the answer that explained his behavior.

She'd been working on it for days without success.

The environment of the Jedi Temple was an ideal place for reflection. While the thoughts outside in the populous were wild and unfocused, within the Temple was an air of collection and peace. All the trained Jedi minds nearby were a comfort... the equilavalent of a comfortable home setting for an average Coruscant resident.

Sora looked back down at her information, staring at the data they'd collected on the dispute and the history of Moralian people for clues as to her master's behavior. It was spotted with wars, so Quaklok was not counting on a peaceful disposition within the natives to settle the problem.

Sora rested her head on one hand, letting the other roll the end of her Padawan braid between her fingers. While she was taken as a baby and had no memory of her life before the Jedi, she was genetically a Corellian and had the features of one. Dark hair and brown eyes with a facial structure discerning specieists within the Republic could indentify with little effort. The rest of her dark brown hair was drawn back in a ponytail, only her Padawan braid free of the restraint and laying over her shoulder. Most of the females among the Padawans, human ones anyway, kept their hair in a ponytail with only the braid free to closer match the appearance of their male Padawan counterparts.

Sora dropped her hair and was about to call up the information on the recent political atmosphere on Moralia when her senses flared at her. She ducked to one side, reaching her hand out across her body and snatching out of the air the object that had been thrown at her with her back as the target moments before.

Sora looked down at the training saber in her hand calmly, turning to see who'd thrown it at her even as her senses recognized the prescence.

Sora turned in her seat to see Anakin Skywalker standing about ten feet from her, faint smirk on his face as he waited for her reaction to what he'd done.

Sora was not in the mood and settled on giving him an impatient look. "Testing me?" she asked, keeping her voice without emotion as she placed the training saber on the table top.

Anakin, of course, could read much more than just the tone of her voice. His face reacted fractionally, but only to give her an almost mocking expression. He could make Sora, typically the model Padawan, riled just with a look.

Anakin Skywalker, Padawan to Obi-Wan Kenobi, was an exception within the Jedi ranks. He always was. He'd not been in any of Yoda's youth groups... he'd come straight into the order an apprentice to Kenobi... highly unorothodox. Beyond that, he was different. The degree of Force sensitivity he harolded was staggering. With his abilities, many of the Padawan in their eyes considered him already ranking as a master. The Jedi themselves treated him differently, and Sora got the distinct feeling that some were not exactly afraid, but concerned or uneasy over something about him.

Anakin knew he was special, too. He was dutifully humble enough, but there was always a glint of arrogance, of self-importance about him. He was better, and he knew that. It was undeniable fact, but he didn't need to know it as well as he did.

Sora looked back at her data, refusing to let Anakin distract her.

Anakin walked up beside her, looking down at the data pad in front of Sora as he asked, "Still can't figure out why you had to leave early?"

Sora frowned at him, saying nothing. He could have easily looked up what Sora's last mission had been, but she knew he'd done no such thing. Not when it was so easy to just read off her as adeptly as a Jedi Master.

Anakin picked the training saber up off the table, tossing it toward her again... with the close proximity allowing her only split-seconds warning, even with her Jedi reflexes, to grab the tool aimed at her a second time.

Sora picked up on Anakin's intention, and in response to her learning the reason for his presence, Anakin withdrew from behind him his own training saber.

Sora sighed, "I don't really have time."

Anakin flipped the training saber in his hands, retorting lightly, "Patience."

"Taking time and wasting time are two very different things."

Anakin propped himself on the edge of the table, "Is anything that hones your skills ever wasteful?"

Sora looked up at him, taking him in a moment. It was useless for her to deny she thought he was attractive, even if she did make the attempt he'd be able to read through it. Now, it was more a foregone fact that needed no further consideration. She didn't let it influence her thoughts, and he didn't let it bother him. She let her second's pause to appreciate him physically fade into her answer, "My master wishes me to resolve this and come to him with the answer."

Anakin half-shrugged, "Distracting yourself with thoughts hasn't worked, maybe distraction with the body will."

Sora looked down at the training saber in her hands, already wavering. It might work, getting some exercise to clear her mind, and Anakin was right that it wouldn't be a total loss even if it didn't work if she got in time to practice her lightsaber skills.

And she should really not pass up the chance to practice with Anakin Skywalker. He was good, very good, and matching herself against that could only make her better. She was better than some of her peers in the physical use of the Force, such as in saberfighting. It was, she was told, a natural apptitude from her Corellian heritage, a people predisposed to phyiscal mastery in combat. She was no where near Anakin's caliber, but it make her understand why he often chose to practice fighting with her when none of the masters could spare their time.

And why he'd accept that they were busy and couldn't her made her a little irritated.

But irritation was not something to dwell on, and she let it go like one might a pedal in a breeze. As easily and quickly, it was a past memory.

Anakin seemed to sense he was defeating her resolve to say no and stood, expectant.

Sora sighed faintly to herself, vacating her chair and following after him toward the gym.

"Do you think your master was wrong?" Anakin asked on the way.

"No," Sora responded without hesitation, taking a moment before going on, "I just don't understand his motive. I clearly have much to learn still if I don't understand."

Anakin was silent, then asked, "And the Morali?"

"Do I understand them?"

Anakin nodded, flipping the training saber into the air again and catching it. Sora caught herself falling into an old habit, shared by many of the Padawans, and warned herself. Her master had chided often that she be mindful of who had the wisdom to guide her and who did not... that Anakin, while he made a great deal of sense, had charisma, and despite his control of the Force, was not a master, nor did he have the knowledge and experience of one.

Still, she saw no danger in answering his question.

Sora paused to think. "Not entirely, but I thought enough to settle their argument."

Anakin glanced at her, a meaningful look as though he knew something important that she didn't. Before she could ask about it, they arrived at the gym. Padawans already there, practicing on their own time, cleared room on the large mat for them when they saw Anakin.

Anakin moved out on to the mat, then turned and faced her, igniting his training saber. Training sabers were almost identical to lightsabers, except they put out a mere fraction of the power and deactivated when they came into contact with living matter. It was a way for Padawans to practice with the feel and weight of a lightsaber without the danger of killing their opponent. The worst one would receive from a training saber were burns (the device could have been designed to leave nothing of a mark, but lessons exacted without any sharp recourse were lessons poorly learned).

Sora faced off, igniting her own saber, then cleared her thoughts and let the Force have her muscles.

So they were a few milliseconds behind realizing when they'd both moved to attack. Sora had no time to be surprised, but moved as her instincts told her to as Anakin advanced upon her.

A sharp bite in her side told her that she'd not been fast enough... the training saber burnt a small hold in her clothes and singed her side.

Sora flinched away, bringing up saber up in defense, then taking a swing at Anakin, only to have it blocked and her own barely up in time to deflect another attack.

They were in combat for what felt like hours, a timelessness that came from relinquishing control to the Force, when the concentrated focus Sora kept all her senses on Anakin wavered. 'Now' became unreal for the briefest of seconds, and in a scene lost in time she saw Anakin there. He was fighting her with a saber again, but it was an actual lightsaber, and there was a great sense of anger... coming from the clouded vision of Anakin.

Sora snapped back to reality, realizing she'd been burned again on the thigh from Anakin's saber. The hazed look of battle Anakin got in his eyes when he fought faded and he stepped back, sensing she'd stopped.

Sora blinked up at him, trying to recapture the fleeting image she'd seen before. To no avail... but there'd been something there.

Anakin cocked his head faintly, as though to ask of she were all right. Sora did not fail to notice she'd been burned several times, holes in her clothes and welts on her skin, while Anakin was unscathed. Not an unexpected outcome... one she'd certainly faced before. Most did not do so well against Skywalker.

In the confusion of trying to piece together what she'd seen, like a revalation she got what it was her master had tried to make her see in the Morali System. That the leaders there had been afraid of war, wanting peace. And that the only real peace would come not by the order of someone else, but from themselves. It was they who had to work out the conflict and reach an agreement.

Anakin nodded fractionally at her, giving a slight bow of respect to show the fight was over.

Sora shut down her weapon and bowed in return, feeling the desire to bow more deeply. His skills deserved it, as well as his aid in helping her. Sometimes he was more master than apprentice.

Anakin clipped the training saber to his belt, opposite his lightsaber, and said, "I must meet my master, we are to go to the senate house to safeguard the senator of Naboo."

Sora nodded, still speechless. There was something there... something was coming... she could feel it.

Anakin moved out of the gym, leaving her standing and watching after him.

There was fear in the future, there was anger, and in its center she'd seen Anakin.

And for the life of her, she couldn't figure out what it meant.

But she was uneasy. She had a very bad feeling.

END


End file.
